Natasha defends her thesis
Doing a thesis defense is always a bit nerve wracking, but imagine if you had to do it twice? Luckly, for Natasha, it turned out that she did only have to defend her thesis once, but after we'd organised a defense in Stellenbosch, we decided to go ahead with the defense as a good practice for the real defense in Lyon. Whether or not it was actually going to be a defense seemed to be beyond our control. The faculty flip-flopped several times on the issue.
Then, at the last minute it looked like even the dry run wouldn't happen as we were forced out of our building for a small fire on the first floor.
We got back into the department shortly after 13h00, when the defense was due to start. We had a diminished audience as many people had disappeared during the evacuation, but all of the important people were there to listen.
In time honoured fashion, after the defense, the lab all went down to the pub to celebrate.
